A Coaching trend has appeared where it’s OK failing, so long as you partly succeed. Is this strategy in the Client’s or Coach’s best interest?

The majority of people will have come across the mnemonic SMART, when it comes to setting goals. Referring to Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-sensitive.

Great goals, reached through individual centric conversations, meet all these criteria. Studies have concluded, time and time again, that clarity of purpose and single mindedness are key reasons why successful people succeed which is why Coaching mimics this.

The Coach’s challenge, is to help clients set goals that really do stretch them i.e. they are just about attainable, with much effort. What you don’t want are goals so simple everyone will achieve them or so difficult that 99% of people will fail.

Because our society tends to measure success/failure in black and white, this creates a dilemma for Coaches. If goals aren’t 100% achieved, unpicking the reasons why can be very de-motivational. It also questions the Coach’s competency too, so the temptation is to arrive at less challenging goals.

Add to this the, “Get out of jail free card”, that it’s OK to achieve 75% (for example) of your goal and you sow the seed that everything is just fine, which it isn’t.

What this approach fails to do is explore the dynamics of the journey, so a clearer line is needed. I prefer adding ER, (Evaluate and Reevaluate) to create SMARTER, rather than SMART Goals. This way you can acknowledge how circumstances change and how reflection and learning are crucial to effective Coaching.

It also means that with appropriate effort, the Client really gets to grip with the challenge, so they sprint off the line reaching their goal in the fastest possible time!

A conversation with an NLP/Hypnotherapy coach got me thinking. Here was an expert at creating dialogue – it’s what coaches do – yet she was very uncertain about the dialogue of Social Media.

So, this article is to unravel the irony/marketing speak and explain the top four areas to focus on.

Establish who you want to talk to: this might be all or a combination of prospects, customers, media, referrers, influencers or other stakeholder. Define the characteristics of each group and create a fictional character to represent them, so that you can create a lifelike picture of their likes/dislikes, wants/needs/interests etc. This way you can really get to know them as people

What it is you want to accomplish? This might be to get customers to come back for more, convince referrers and stakeholders that you are the best in your field, or get people to seek your opinion. Overlay this onto each group of people that you wish to reach. Don’t confuse this with selling and promotional offers; Social Media isn’t about overtly ‘selling’, it’s much more about informative two-way conversation and keeping in touch

Where will you find the people that you wish to have a dialogue with? Using the search functions, check out the various Social Media, to see if you can find content around your topic of interest or people you want to have a dialogue with. I would start with LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. For the time being focus on these, expand to other media such as Pinterest as you gain confidence.

Establish topics that will interest your audience and activity to stimulate dialogue that can be measured? This might be content to place you as an expert, ‘personality’ or commentator, or hints and tips for self-help, communicated through video segment, podcast, blog or e-book, measured by number of viewers, downloads, comments etc.

As with most things, keep it simple and manageable, don’t be too ambitious. Constantly test what you do. Have a plan. Publish regularly, making it interesting, different and topical and you will soon be enjoying Social Media success.

HMV’s antecedents go back to the 1890’s and Jessop’s 1935, but like Woolworth in the past, they have joined a list of Public names that have failed, putting many out of work and yet another nail in the high street coffin. But what went wrong?

I don’t think that’s too much of a secret. Change of market needs, change of customer purchase methods combined with the burden of high overheads. More interesting is why? Why do two successful, well-established and popular brands get in this position?

I think three reasons stand clear, head and shoulders above the rest. The deadly combination is Leadership that lacks vision, poor marketing and business development inertia.

And once the tipping point is reached and marketing advantage lost, as these two giants show, there is no return and no amount of public nostalgia about support helps. The only things that do, are sales and cash in the bank from customer’s buying.

In the UK, most of these death cries go unnoticed because of our 4.8M businesses, 4.6M or 96% of them are micro businesses employing 0-9 people.

So when it hits the fan, there’s hardly a blip on the news radar.

But make no mistake, business failures are regular, painful and common, which is why owners should wake up to the need to keep in touch and make marketing and business development a priority.

Know your customer’s needs and know what they want to buy would be my mantra. And it shouldn’t be an annual research activity but a continuous process embedded into business DNA.

Many small businesses and organisations, often as a consequence of day-to-day pressures on their time, have a stop/start approach to marketing.

This FREE 40 Minute marketing session will enable you to prioritise the key areas to work on and where to effectively dedicate your time.

Imagine how much more confident you would feel knowing that you had a marketing plan in place where you can measure the effectiveness of everything you are doing?

Delivered by a either a 40-minute video Skype, or meeting at my office, I will take you through the marketing essentials, to help you get right to the heart of what’s important when it comes to promoting your organisation.

Here is a short video to tell you more

Together we will explore and create a 5-point Action Plan that will help you: